Platypus Tooth Bites Hard into Long-Held Beliefs

People have often asked
sceptically why we don’t
find fossils of kangaroos or
platypuses, for example,
anywhere but in Australia. Surely, they
say, this means they must have evolved
in Australia.

However, we don’t find lion fossils
in the Middle East where they are
known to have lived—fossilization
requires special conditions. In the
biblical model, creatures such as platypuses
may well have reached other
parts of the world—Australia is simply
the only place where they have
survived. So while it is not necessary to
find their fossils anywhere else, if a few
such fossils were found it would support
the biblical model, but would be a
big blow to those who say they must
have evolved here.

Now South American scientists
have discovered a fossil platypus tooth
in Patagonia, near the tip of South
America.1 Not surprisingly, it ‘has sent
shock waves through the scientific
community’.2 Platypus teeth are
unique and distinctive, with a V-shaped,
double-crested blade system.
The find has been confirmed by the
Royal Zoological Society in Sydney,
Australia.

The question of how the kangaroo,
platypus, etc., travelled to Australia is
the subject of chapter 12 of The Answers
Book. Whether evolutionists
believe the platypus evolved in South
America or Australia, they face the
same question (with the same possible
answers) as creationists do, namely
how it crossed over the ocean.